OTCPro User Disappears with $650,000 After Error

An Australian cryptocurrency exchange, OTCPro, mistakenly credited user Koh Seng Chai with $653,000 instead of $65,300. He withdrew most of the funds and vanished, according to ABC News, citing court documents.

The incident occurred in January when an internal glitch turned 99,500 AUD into 995,000 AUD.

The exchange’s management discovered the error on January 4 and emailed the user demanding the return of the funds. However, the account holder did not respond.

Court filings reveal that shortly after receiving the assets, Chai converted them into USDT and over the next 10 days withdrew approximately $626,700 from the platform in $100,000 increments, adhering to the daily withdrawal limit.

Rhino Trading, the company that owns OTCPro, claims that a different person answered calls to the phone number linked to the account. Chai also failed to appear in court.

On February 9, the Supreme Court of Victoria froze the suspect’s bank accounts and on February 21 barred him from leaving the country. The firm estimated the loss at $322,700.

Judge Michael Osborne stated there is a “real risk of asset disposal.” The investigation also uncovered fake bank statements used by Chai during the exchange’s verification process.

In September 2022, Binance mistakenly distributed 4.8 million Helium tokens, valued at approximately $19 million, due to an accounting error.